Babysitter Lolita

She always comes wearing a delicatelittleskirt, holding a little handbag. The father of the baby doesn't dare look at her, so he just stares at her handbag; the mother gives her a little envelope as fast as she can. The envelope embarrasses the mother, but the babysitter fiddles with it while she waits for the couple to leave, then opens it and stuffs the money in her handbag. As soon as she hears the car drive away, she grabs the phone.

He gave me daisies. We were sitting in his car, me fingering the money in my pocket, my putative income, a welcome whiff of independence, a door to adulthood. I was nervous, on the brink of a hatching I was not taught to prepare for, restive, embarrassed. My body bloomed all round me like a frangrantvegetative being with a will of its own, uncontrollably spreading in a myriad steep and slippery directions.

I said thank you again. He said, we're leaving for Canada soon, this will probably be the last time you babysit for us. I said yes, have a good trip. Instead of going out of my mouth and into his ears, I saw my words travel in slow motion across the width of the car, meeting his advancing form half way, shattering and morphing around his outstreched fingers, helplessly fading away as the light was blocked out by his approaching, growing, monstrously inflating head.

His fingers were cold on my neck, a fingertip behind each ear, why doesn't he take me by the shoulders, and then lips, wet, cold, pressing, sliding with a trail like a slug's. I kept my eyes open and stared at him, cold, unforgiving, knowing exactly what was going on. He finally let go and looked away with a smile like a rictus but I wasn't saving him, I wasn't helping, I knew what he had done, I knew he wasn't allowed but there was nothing I could have done was there I was just a little girl and I took my hand out of my pocket and wiped my mouth and didn't feel the money any more. My ears were burning and my vision was blurred.

When they separated, both moving out of the "family" home and finding rhythms for their life they'd decided for the sake of their daughter Tiffany to keep the same babysitter, L. It didn't matter whether Tiffany was at Her place or His, L was the babysitter.